How Many Calories Should I Eat?
Despite what we read on the Nutrition Facts labels we see on the back of our foods, we are not all designed to eat the same amount of calories.
In fact, the amount of calories that you eat is just as individual as the combination of your weight, age, height, activity levels, and weight goals are.
However, the US Department of Health and Human Services has made some generalizations based upon the average American’s statistics.
After compiling all the research, they found that an adult female from the ages 19-30 who performs 30 minutes or less of moderate and daily physical activity should consume 2,000 calories, and a man in the same group should consume 2400 calories.
As soon as you are over thirty, your daily allotment of calories drops about 200 calories for both men and women.
What Do Those Numbers Mean?
Assigning a number to a food might seem pretty arbitrary, and if you are not a food scientist (yes, they exist) then it is.
But to help you put some foods to those numbers, we’ve put together a list of common foods and how many calories they contain:
Apple: 80
Grape: 2 each
Raisins: 124 (1.5 oz)
Asparagus: 36 (1 cup)
Broccoli: 40 (1 cup)
Fried rice: 418 (1 cup)
Spinach: 14 (1 cup)
Butter: 100 (1 Tbsp)
Cheddar cheese: 114 (1 oz)
Sugar: 46 (1 Tbsp)
And even if these calories don’t seem like a lot compared to your daily allotment of calories, it’s important to remember that if you just eat 100 calories more than you’re burning, you will end up gaining around 15 pounds a year.
Since most Americans eat an average of 150 more calories than they’re supposed to, it’s no surprise that most people find that they weigh substantially more than they did five years ago, even if they never started eating more.
How Do We Prevent This?
One option is to religiously keep track of how many calories you’re eating versus how many calories you’re burning, making sure you’re not adding food unnecessarily.
Unfortunately, this route is extremely difficult due to the fact that we simply don’t have time to measure and calculate everything we eat—especially at restaurants.
But, there is always the option to burn even more calories, making sure you’re not storing any of your food as fat and maybe even depleting some of that fat we’re all carrying around.
You can do this by increasing your daily exercise load, or by looking for a weight loss supplement that will help you raise your metabolism, suppress your appetite, or increase the efficiency of your workout. You can find some of the most effective weight loss supplements at www.weightlosssupplement.org.